You think you have it bad? Pick up one of these books about teens facing zombies, plagues, and the end of life as they know it.  

This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada 
“In a world where people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, gene-hacking genius Cat must decrypt her late father’s message concealing a vaccine to a horrifying plague.” 

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland 
“Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania– derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. Now laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. But it’s not a life Jane wants. When families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy… and the restless dead are the least of her problems.” 

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau 
“It’s graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about–hope for–is whether she’ll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings (“Cia, trust no one”), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance–and sheer terror—await.” 

Enclave by Ann Aguirre 
“In a post-apocalyptic future, fifteen-year-old Deuce, a loyal Huntress, brings back meat while avoiding the Freaks outside her enclave, but when she is partnered with the mysterious outsider, Fade, she begins to see that the strict ways of the elders may be wrong– and dangerous.” 

Partials by Dan Wells 
“In a post-apocalyptic eastern seaboard ravaged by disease and war with a manmade race of people called Partials, the chance at a future rests in the hands of Kira Walker, a sixteen-year-old medic in training.” 

Illuminae by Amie Kaufmann 
“The planet Kerenza is attacked, and Kady and Ezra find themselves on a space fleet fleeing the enemy, while their ship’s artificial intelligence system and a deadly plague may be the end of them all.” 

Wither by Lauren DeStefano 
“After modern science turns every human into a genetic time bomb with men dying at age twenty-five and women dying at age twenty, girls are kidnapped and married off in order to repopulate the world.” 

Virals by Kathy Reichs 
“Tory Brennan is the leader of a band of teenage ‘sci-philes‘ who live on an island off the coast of South Carolina and when the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.” 

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry 
“In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.” 

The Jewel by Amy Ewing 
“The Jewel has many meanings: wealth, beauty, royalty. But for Violet, the Jewel has always meant servitude. Born and raised in the Marsh, Violet is destined for the Jewel. She is trained as a surrogate for the elite and is bought by the Duchess of the Lake at auction. And she quickly learns that beneath the Jewel’s glittering façade lies the cruelty, backstabbing, and hidden violence that have become the royal way of life.”